Pear and almond tart
Posted: October 24, 2010 Filed under: Dessert, Pastry and Baking | Tags: Almonds, Cake, Dessert, Pears, Sugar 1 Comment
I found this pear and almond tart recipe on my way home, on tram 11. Someone left behind a Food & Travel magazine behind, and curiosity made me pick it up to flip through. Two tram stops latter, I had already decided to try all recipes. As pears are at its prime around A.’s birthday, it has become her official birthday cake. Well, sort of.
Pear and almond tart
Ingredients
For the pastry
- 200g plain flour
- 2 table spoons caster sugar
- 100g cold unsalted butter cut into pieces
- a pinch of salt
- 100g unsalted butter
- 100g sugar
- 2 eggs
- 100g ground almonds
- 2 table spoons flour
- 3-4 ripe pears
To make the pastry, put the flour, sugar, butter and salt in a food processor, and, using the pulse button, process until the butter is broken down (about 5-10 pulses). Add 3 tablespoons of cold water, and pulse just until the dough forms coarse crumbs; add one more tablespoon of water if necessary, but do not do more than 10 pulses. Transfer the pastry to a sheet of backing parchment, form into a ball and flatten to a disk. Wrap in the paper and let stand for 30-60 minutes.
Roll out the pastry to the diameter of the baking tin (a tarte tatin or other round flame proof baking dish). Turn the tin upside down and on the rolled out pastry and press down and trace around the edge with a sharp knife.
Alternatively, just use pre made pastry. It might not be so good, but it does the trick.
Preheat the oven the 200oC. Prick the pastry all over, line with baking parchment, and fill with baking weights. Bake for 15min, then remove the paper and weights (I used beans), and bake for 10-15min more, until just golden. Let the tart shell cool slightly before filling.
To make the almond cream, put the butter and sugar in a bowl and mix with the electric mixer, until fluffy and lemon coloured (it takes some time and patience. I start with melted butter). Beat in the eggs one at a time. Using a spatula, fold in the almonds and flour until well mixed.
Preheat the oven to 190oC. Spread the almond cream evenly in the tart shell. Peel and core the pears, and slice into 8-12 pieces, depending on the size of the fruit. Arrange the pear slices on top of the almond cream. Bake for about 20-30min, until puff and golden. Serve warm.
Tomato galette, take 2
Posted: September 19, 2010 Filed under: Pastry and Baking, Vegetarian | Tags: Goat cheese, Tomato, Yotam Ottolenghi Leave a comment
Eccles cake gone mad
Posted: September 4, 2010 Filed under: Dessert, Pastry and Baking | Tags: Berries Leave a comment
The pastry was wrong, the filling was wrong, the cooking was wrong. Other than this, it was delicious. Maybe in a I wannabe-a-molecular-cuisine-blogger post, I could have called it deconstructed eccles cake on steroids. The recipe I used was not created in controlled conditions and cannot be replicated to obtain the same results. The original is here.
Tomato galette and roasted spring onions
Posted: September 1, 2010 Filed under: Pastry and Baking, Vegetarian | Tags: Goat cheese, Spring onions, Tomato, Yotam Ottolenghi Leave a comment
The spring onions’ recipe is a courtesy of T.. The tomato galette was a creation of Yotam Ottolenghi for his New Vegetarian column on The Guardian.
Tomato Galette
Ingredients
- 375g all-butter puff pastry
- 8 stalks fresh oregano, leaves picked and roughly chopped
- 100g goat’s cheese, crumbled
- 450g red, yellow or green tomatoes of various sizes, sliced 2mm thick
- 8 stalks fresh thyme
- Olive oil
For the sundried tomato paste
- 10 sun-dried tomatoes from a jar
- 1 fresh red chilli, sliced (I use a tea spoon of dried piri piri)
- 2 garlic cloves
- Half tablespoon of sugar
- 1 teaspoon of salt
Method
Preheat the oven to 200oC/gas mark 6. Roll out the pastry to 3mm thick (Alternatively, if you have a large enough baking sheet, roll out the pastry into one circle, like a big pizza.) Transfer the pastry rectangles to a large baking sheet lined with baking paper and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the sun-dried tomato paste. Put all the ingredients in the small bowl of a food processor and process to a rough paste; if necessary, add a little oil from the tomato jar to bring it together. If your food processor bowl is too large, you may need to do some of the chopping by hand.
Spread a thin layer of the tomato paste over the chilled pastry, leaving a border about 1cm from the edge. Sprinkle with the oregano and goat’s cheese, and arrange the tomatoes on top, slightly overlapping but not too precisely. Make sure the tomato paste is covered by fresh tomatoes because it tends to burn. Drop the thyme stalks over the tomatoes and drizzle with a little olive oil.
Bake for 15 minutes, until golden on top; check the base to make sure the pastry is brown and fully cooked. Remove from the oven and leave to cool before drizzling over more olive oil and serving warm.
Roasted spring onions
Ingredients
- Spring onions, cut in half
- Salt, pepper
- Olive oil
Method
Preheat the oven to 200oC. Put the Spring onions on a baking tray. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and then drizzle with a little olive oil. Bake for 10 minutes or until golden on the top.
Lucie Loves Food 